


Day #13: Christmas Past

by Accal1a



Series: December Nickels Insanity [13]
Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux, Sidewinder Series - Abigail Roux
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Christmas, Gen, Heavy Angst, Prisoner of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-07 13:11:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16854583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: Sidewinder attempt to deal with Christmas without Nick and Ty.





	Day #13: Christmas Past

**Author's Note:**

> I cried writing this...

It didn't feel like Christmas this year.

Usually, even in the desert they managed to make it Christmas every year. They wore stupid sweaters; drank eggnog when they weren't on the clock; received presents from family; and sang blue versions of normal Christmas carols. They had to do all of this or they'd forget what they were fighting for.

This year all of that was hollow. 

The sweaters mocked them, the eggnog made them sick, presents went unopened, and they were silent.

This year Christmas was cancelled in the hearts of the four men left behind. Christmas was dead.

~~~

Kelly stared at the spot where Nick had built a 'snowman' out of broken gear and spent munitions last year. He had loudly proclaimed that it was Captain Snowcloud and they must refer to him as such. Kelly and Ty had fallen off their chairs laughing at the absurdity of Nick's stern words next to the monstrosity.

This year there wouldn't be a snowman. 

A private had tried to continue the tradition and build something in that area and Kelly had taken a swing at him and told him to get away. It was only because Owen held him back that the other man was safe. He picked up all the scraps of gear and started to build it elsewhere, all the time eyeing Sidewinder in case they were against the idea entirely.

Kelly had sat down in defeat, Owen patting him on his back and sitting vigil next to him, and gone back to staring at the spot.

~~~

Owen had cut his Christmas jumper from the previous year along the goofy smiling reindeer on the front. He'd looked at it before the yearly Christmas jumper parade that Ty had started and suddenly couldn't bear the sight of the thing.

Sanchez found him when the jumper was mere pieces on his rack and he was still cutting the fabric into smaller and smaller pieces, the garment now unrecognisable.

He carefully pulled the knife away from Owen's hand and held him as he broke down.

~~~

Digger found Sanchez away from the camp shooting empty bottles of eggnog until only shards remained. The bottles fractured when he shot them, and he carried on shooting until there was nothing left.

He watched as Sanchez picked up another bottle at his feet and walked to place it on a post and walked back.

Sanchez looked into Digger's eyes and he saw the utter heartbreak reflected back in them as he turned again and started to shoot.

Digger stood at his shoulder in silence, watching as the glass cracked, just like their hearts were.

~~~

Digger stared at the parcels he'd recieved from his family that year the way they had sent them in gift bags because they knew the package could be searched and the paper was pointless.

He looked at the shiny bags and the heartflet cards and letters and found he couldn't open any of them.

It was a Sidewinder tradition that they opened one gift together before retiring to opening the rest of them in peace, giving each other space to miss their families if they needed it. Nick always needed someone to sit with him, someone to get him through the memories of Christmas' past in the O'Flaherty household, memories he didn't often let surface. It had been Digger's turn this year.

He found he couldn't open anything without that first present being opened with all of them.

Kelly found him an indeterminate time later, parcels in his own arms, unopened.

They sat on Diggers's rack, legs tangled one of them leaning on the headboard, one on the baseboard, staring into nothing.

~~~

They weren't being sent out on missions, being deemed compromised, which meant they all had a lot of time to think, a lot of time to wonder what they could have done differently, how they could have stopped this.

They barely spoke to anyone and kept mostly to themselves. They were still a team and they took comfort from that; but they weren't whole and the gaping space where Nick and Ty should be was almost a physical weight and presence.

~~~

Kelly had forgotten what his own voice sounded like, so when he crawled into the truck holding Nick and Ty, and called out Nick's name, he was surprised by how hoarse he sounded, how broken the whisper was.

When Kelly found the pulse at Nick's neck he felt his knees go weak…but he was a Corpsman as well as a best friend and he got to work immediately, glancing over when he was jostled slightly to see another Corpsman working on Ty.

They were back.

It was a fucking Christmas miracle.

**Author's Note:**

> I took liberties with the timeline. I have no idea when in the year Nick and Ty were taken, but I used this for plot purposes. :'D
> 
> Come and visit the [Cut & Run Discord Server](https://discord.gg/vvy6c76) and join us as we discuss/scream about this awesome series.


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